Installation shot of Homeland Stories Exhibition

Installation shot of Homeland Stories Exhibition

This exhibition explores the Homeland stories found within recent acquisitions of Aboriginal art in the University’s own art collection.

Aboriginal people, who have often been dispossessed for years and in some cases several generations from their lands, through art, have been able to re-create connections to their heritage. Artists such as Lorriane Connelly Northey utilizes the traditional weaving practices from her mother’s Waradgerie (Wiradjuri) Country, recycling cast off elements, such as rusted metal and farm machinery and reconfiguring traditional vessels such as narbongs (string bags) and koolimans (bush bowls).

There are many examples within the exhibition, where the artwork is derived from a Dreaming, which is a knowledge system where only those authorized to hold the knowledge are able to produce and interpret the many layers of meaning represented in it. Within a particular painting, each motif may have several levels of interpretation, depending upon a person’s stage of initiation. There are several works by Aboriginal elders who have depicted their custodian right to produce a certain Dreaming, such as Abi Lou Kemarre who paints the Bush Hen Dreaming and associated Sand-hills and body painting.

This exhibition commemorates the 50th anniversary of the Yirrkala Bark Petitions presented to Parliament in August 1963, which were framed by ochre paintings of clan designs, asserting the Yolngu people’s traditional rights and ownership of their lands. These petitions were the first traditional documents recognized by the Commonwealth Parliament and helped shape the nation’s acknowledgment of Aboriginal people and their land rights.